- Office of the Superintendent
- Technology Services
- Accountability, Assessment & Performance Management
- Curriculum & Instruction
- Business Services
Office of the Superintendent
Objective: Work with the superintendent to design and implement strategies and systems that provide the organizational and financial stability the district needs to be able to focus on raising student achievement.
What we do
ViKiwi provides the capabilities of a “Big 4” management consulting firm without the “Big 4” price. While we leave educational strategy to the Chief Academic Officer, we apply good business practices to help create a financially stable, high performing organization that enables the district’s educational strategy to be effective.
Through daily interactions with district personnel at many levels, Vikiwi consultants have developed an appreciation of the challenges facing school districts and the complexity of the environment, especially within the context of No Child Left Behind, and an uncertain funding climate. Drawing upon our experiences working both in business and with school districts, we help the leadership establish an environment that maximizes the district’s energy and resources to educating students.
How we do it
ViKiwi uses a four-stage, collaborative approach:
- Problem definition and data gathering
- Analysis
- Development of solutions
- Implementation
We consider all stakeholders: the board, the community, families, students, the district’s employees, foundations, and state and federal agencies all as potentially, part of the problem and part of the solution. While ViKiwi is aware of practices that have been successful in certain districts, we usually do not import solutions wholesale, but rather design solutions that are customized for the particular characteristics of each district.
ViKiwi will collaborate with the district leadership to develop a strategic plan that will incorporate the recommendations and which will serve as a plan-of-action for the district. The strategic plan might address:
- Organization
- Finances
- Communications
- Human resources
- Technology
- Facilities
Once the key stakeholders have accepted the strategic plan, ViKiwi will help the district with implementation, adding the tactical details to embed the plan into operations, and building in a performance management system to track progress towards the goals.
Links to interesting news articles and case studies:
- Making K-12 budget cuts less painful for students
- Turning a strategic plan from words into actions
- Filling the gap with an interim Technology Officer
- Getting the best ROI for technology spending
- An organizational structure for accountability
- The case for strong project management
- Dramatically improving service without increasing resources
Links to interesting white papers:
- So you think you need a data warehouse?
- Maintaining focus on educating kids
- Making technology grants more effective
____________________________________________
Technology Services
Objective: Get the most out of every dollar spent on technology.
What we do
We apply methodologies proven in business to make sure every technology dollar in the district is spent wisely. Guided by eight principles, we help districts use technology to improve teaching and learning, increase efficiency, strengthen recordkeeping, facilitate accountability, streamline the delivery of goods and services, and improve communications. We help clarify the district’s technology strategy, pinpoint areas for improvement and create a blueprint for a target architecture.
ViKiwi helps districts strengthen the following specific areas:
The infrastructure to ensure reliable service to all users
- Servers
- Network (including strategies to leverage E-Rate)
Systems that provide accurate, useful data
- Student information system
- Financial and HR system
- Data warehouse
- Assessment tools
- Data analysis and reporting tools
- Curriculum management systems
- Data governance
Tools that supplement the teacher in the classroom
- Tools that enhance instruction
- Tools that provide access to resources beyond the classroom
- Interventions that facilitate student learning
Systems that increase efficiency and lower costs
- Applications that automate tasks
- Applications that enable self-service
Systems that enhance communications and collaboration
- External websites
- Intranet
- BLOGs
Help and support
- Ensure all users can always get help to benefit from technology
How we do it
|
Develop a Technology Strategic Plan |
|
|
Evaluate technologies that have not met expectations |
|
|
Think before buying |
|
|
And if makes more sense to build… |
|
|
Keeping all the pieces moving in synch |
|
|
Professional development |
|
|
And if there is no-one leading technology at present… |
|
Links to interesting case studies:
- Determing how to get the best ROI on technology
- Interim technology officer fills leadership vacuum
- Dealing with a disappointing product
- Setting the technology agenda with C & I
- Cleaning data, and keeping data clean
- Bringing data warehouse back into operation
- The need for strong project management
- Finding the root cause of data issues
- Dramatically improving Helpdesk service quality without increasing resources
Links to interesting white papers:
- So you think you need a data warehouse?
- Maintaining focus on educating kids
- Making technology grants more effective
____________________________________________
Accountability, Assessments and Performance Management
Objective: Implement processes and tools to develop an environment where every student and every adult, both teachers and those responsible for the non-instructional activities in the district, are using data to measure and improve performance.
What we do
ViKiwi recognizes that accountability / performance management is much more than assessments and complying with federal mandates like No Child Left Behind. It is giving the students and adults in the district the information and tools they need to keep improving their work; it is giving families in the district the information they need to take some responsibility for their children’s education; and it is giving the businesses and residents in the district the information they need to support the schools financially through grants and tax levies.
ViKiwi helps districts implement systems that provide teachers, administrators and the adults responsible for non-instructional activities, the information they need to monitor their performance and make timely course corrections. These systems disseminate information to the other district stakeholders and borrow from good management practices that ViKiwi’s founders have proven in business.
Recognizing that creating an environment where accountability for meeting measurable targets is driving everyday behaviors often requires changes to the culture of the organization, ViKiwi provides professional development in practices such as project management, planning, and data-driven decision-making that can significantly increase the probability that goals will be met.
How we do it
ViKiwi helps the district establish a comprehensive accountability / performance management system.
|
Develop meaningful plans |
Develop a district strategic plan, departmental plans and school improvement plans that reflect the leadership’s vision for improving student achievement, and that integrate the expectations of all stakeholders. Select indicators and metrics, both quantitative and qualitative, at a level of granularity that can provide early warning signals to both students and adults when things are not working. |
|
Make it easy to collect and analyze data |
Design and implement systems and processes to collect, archive and analyze the data needed to evaluate performance. Select and implement technologies that may include assessment tools, a data warehouse, and communications platforms such as SchoolMeasures™ that can streamline data collection and analysis. Identify the data needs of each stakeholder group and use technology to provide convenient access to those data (for example, through regular “scorecards”). |
|
Embed processes that constantly force the discussion: “can we do better?” |
Develop teachers and administrators to adopt continuous improvement frameworks that foster collaboration and open discussion of issues, and processes that help identify problems early enough for effective corrective actions to be taken. |
- Making cuts in K-12 budgets less painful for students
- An organizational structure for accountability
- Technology for data driven decision-making
- Establishing metrics for adult performance
- Program evaluation
Links to interesting white papers:
____________________________________________
Curriculum & Instruction
Objective: Provide tools that help assess the learning needs and guide the instruction of each student.
What we do
ViKiwi helps districts implement systems that simplify the gathering and analysis of assessment data, and that leverage the expertise of its best teachers to improve the performance of every student. With good data and suitable resources, every teacher can pinpoint an individual student’s learning needs to design and implement a learning plan that is right for each student.
How we do it
We manage the project from start to finish: we bring together all the stakeholders, including teachers, principals, Curriculum & Instruction, and Technology to reach consensus on a comprehensive solution; we draw upon our knowledge of the industry to help districts select technologies such as student information systems, data warehouses, and reporting, analysis and assessment tools; and we coordinate the work of vendors and all the departments in the district so that all the pieces of the solution fit together on a timeline that meets everyone’s expectations. We maintain a balanced focus on implementing appropriate technology and developing practices that use formative assessments to improve teaching and learning.
Links to interesting case studies: Links to interesting white papers:
____________________________________________
Business Services Objective: Enable every department to provide great service to the district’s employees, despite continual budget pressure. What we do ViKiwi helps districts streamline the delivery of services such as child nutrition, transportation, janitorial services, building repairs, purchasing and human resources, significantly decreasing general overhead expenses and leaving a larger share of the budget for teaching and learning. And we apply technology to allow departments to constantly see how they are doing, enabling them to fix problems before they are chronic. ViKiwi’s professionals have designed and implemented many systems that have dramatically increased productivity by piggy-backing on two business trends: The technologies that underlie these trends can help school districts reduce the cost of providing the myriad of services that are essential to the operation of the district. For example, automation or increasing employee accountability (or a combination of both) can reduce the cost of:
These are just a few examples of the many opportunities where districts can use technology to eliminate unnecessary handling and maintain a high level of customer service despite shrinking budgets.
How we do it
ViKiwi manages the project from start to finish, coordinating the work of vendors and internal departments, building and fitting all the pieces together to yield a result that is a win-win for everybody. Links to interesting case studies and news articles:
Districts are constantly challenged to do more with less. Many district leaders believe there are substantial cost savings from streamlining their operations. They are usually right. And service does not have to suffer; usually, it gets better. An efficiently run organization makes employees feel good about where they work, and the community feel good about where it is sending its children and how its taxes are being spent.
We study each business process end-to-end. We listen to the people doing the work and the people who use the services, and design solutions that usually comprise technology and changes to the way work is performed. Implementation of any system only proceeds after the leaders of the district are satisfied with the cost-benefit of the project. We help the district decide what to build, using district and ViKiwi resources, and what to buy. And we help the district with implementation, the most important factor that can determine success or failure.
